This Wedding is Doomed!

by Stephanie Draven

  “He was planning to come, but then he couldn’t. He sounded upset about it, really. I don’t have any uncles or brothers to step in. Max has been like a big brother to me, but I already asked him to officiate. Imagine scrambling around at the last minute for someone to walk you down the aisle. If that’s not a sign, what is?”

  Andy felt he should say something thoughtful, but he was just the guy she’d hired to pass out goat cheese on toast. Where was the guy she was supposed to marry? Why wasn’t he out there chasing after her? What made her unhappy enough to run in the first place?

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a while.

  “For what?”

  “For being late with the food.”

  She stared at him and finally broke. The sound of laughter filled the cab as she pressed a hand to her ribs. It was one of those laugh-so-you-don’t-cry kind of laughs.

  “We can stop right here if that’s what you want,” he offered. “Go right back. We’ve been gone for maybe ten, fifteen minutes at the most. You can pretend this never happened.”

  Tessa considered it for a long time, running her hand lightly over the flowers in the bouquet that rested beside her on the car seat. Some of the petals had fallen off like large blue tear drops.

  “Just keep going,” she said, looking straight ahead.

  Chapter Three

  Tessa stared over the dashboard at Andy’s back as he stood at a fork in the road. He had stopped the van in the middle of the road and now stared from one path to the other and then back again.

  She leaned out the passenger side. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t figure out which way to go.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Andy rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I kind of got lost getting here. Took the long way around.”

  They were surrounded by woods on both sides and the terrain was rocky. When Tessa was searching for locations, she had thought it would be romantic to get married outdoors among trees and wildflowers. On the other hand, she had never been one for roughing it. Julie had found her the perfect place; a stately mansion way up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere.

  “Don’t you remember how to get down from here?” Andy asked.

  “I only came once before today and this morning I was about to get married. I was too nervous to pay attention to the road.”

  “Sure,” he smirked. “Play the wedding card now.”

  He had one of those grins that could get away with anything. His look was kind of careless, yet at the same time put together. Tousled blond hair that didn’t quite fall into place. He was wearing a tailored white chef’s jacket over black slacks, but if Tessa had to guess, she’d wager he was normally a jeans and black T-shirt sort of guy. And he’d somehow carry it off and look both reckless and confident in it.

  After some thought, Andy pointed to the left. “I think we go that way.”

  “All right then.”

  “Or maybe it was the other way . . .”

  Tessa blew out a breath. “Just pick one.”

  She just wanted to get moving. It didn’t matter where they went as long as no one found her for a while.

  Once they were back in the car, he started the engine and headed down the road on the right. After a while, the silence started feeling weird. Weird on top of having just fled her wedding.

  “So your name is Andy,” she ventured.

  “Andy Ottavio.”

  Tessa vaguely remembered Julie raving about the caterer. Somehow she’d expected someone older.

  “Thank you Andy, by the way.”

  “Uh, no problem.”

  He said “no problem,” but she heard, “what have I gotten myself into?” as he looked to the left and right as if hoping for a rescue team.

  “You probably think I’m high-strung.”

  “Hey, we’ve just met,” he said with a shrug.

  “I’m usually very low maintenance. Probably too low maintenance.” She adjusted the skirt around her legs and tried to find a comfortable position now that she no longer had to worry about wrinkling it. “If I had been more of a drama queen earlier on, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten this far. Everyone just seemed so happy for us. I think at some point, I was going through with it just for everyone else’s sake, trying to tell myself that they were right and everything was supposed to be perfect. It was like the opposite of buyer’s remorse. What’s the term for that?”

  A little line formed between Andy’s eyes as he considered it. “Groupthink?” he guessed.

  “No, not quite . . . wait . . . post-purchase rationalization!” she blurted out, happy to actually pin down the phrase. “Graham proposed and I had this ring on my finger so I just felt obligated to let things slide. Isn’t that just stupid?”

  “Not really.” He shifted gears as they started up a slope, his movements exuding an easy confidence, someone comfortable in his own skin despite the strange situation that had been thrown at him. “You wanted to be happy and your friends all meant well. Everyone wants to see a wedding, any wedding, succeed. It reaffirms everything we live for: love, family. All that.”

  “That’s the Italian in you speaking, Ottavio.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked. “It’s not just us Italians who have families. You don’t look like you were grown in a test tube.”

  “Petri dish,” she quipped.

  “Smart-ass.”

  All things considered, Andy was taking everything in stride despite having his catering van hijacked. Maybe this was exactly what she needed right now; meaningless banter with someone who wasn’t supremely disappointed with her for running away.

  What was she supposed to do? Stay back there and bring up all her doubts to Graham in front of his entire family? And in front of her Mom, too?

  “Oh God,” she moaned. “Mom!”

  Her mom and Renata would be frantic.

  “What do you need?” Andy was looking over at her with concern.

  “Can you call someone and just say . . . just tell them I’m okay?”

  He took his phone from his pocket and started to hand it to her while his other hand remained on the steering wheel. Tessa shook her head. She wasn’t ready to talk just yet.

  Obligingly, Andy hit a few buttons and held the phone to his ear. “I’ll call Julie,” he said. Then, after a pause. “Message.”

  She looked out the window at the passing greenery while Andy explained to Julie’s voice mail that she was safe and that they’d try back later. Meanwhile, Tessa tried to think of what she was going to say when everyone asked her what the hell had happened. She couldn’t think of a single coherent thing.

  Tomorrow was going to be absolutely miserable. And the day after.

  “So what do you do?” Andy asked after shutting off the phone. He was obviously striving to keep things as normal as possible.

  “Umm . . . I teach ninth and tenth grade English.”

  “Well, that explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “You talk all, you know, smart. Oh crap.” He banged his head once against the steering wheel. “And apparently I don’t. What I mean is you sound really intelligent. Brainy. In a good way. Shit.”

  She was smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt. “Thanks. I think.”

  “Let’s start over.” He blew out a breath to clear the air and resumed with some grace. “That’s really great. I admire people who teach.”

  People always said that. Still, she appreciated the sentiment. “Thank you. I’ve only been doing it for a few years.”

  The road continued winding through hills and grass. She hadn’t realized how large the area was.

  “I teach the enrichment class.”

  “Hmm?”

  “The ones who didn’t pass the first time.”

  “Ah, the remedial cl
ass.”

  “I don’t really like calling it that.”

  Andy raised an eyebrow at her. “So call it the ‘you’re all great in my book’ class. It still means the same thing.”

  She could feel herself going into lecture mode. “The transition to high school is a tough one for some students. Teenagers are very externally focused. It’s about image and what everyone else is doing. They’re trying to figure out where they stand and when they’re labeled as failures, they start to believe it. I lobbied the department chair all last year to split up the repeater class and insert those students into the regular English classes, but he was adamant about not allowing ‘those’ kids to poison the freshmen. As if they were an infectious disease.”

  Andy chuckled. “One of those dinosaurs who laments the end of corporal punishment?”

  “Exactly. Sometimes teenagers just need extra time maturing, unless you tell them early on that they’re fuckups.”

  He fell silent as he looked down the empty road. “You know, I would have been in your class,” he said after a pause.

  “No way.”

  “Yep, failed freshman English. Believe it or not, I was a bit of a fuckup in high school,” he flashed her that grin again.

  “Always showing up tardy then, too?”

  “Hey.”

  Was it her busy schedule at school that made her so blind to everything that was going on? She and Graham had hardly seen one another in the six months between his proposal and the wedding day. Then there was the Academic Decathlon competition and volunteer hikes with the Sierra Club.

  She was one of those. She could never say no, especially not to her students. At times, between parent conferences and testing schedules, she had even been grateful that he wasn’t more demanding for her time.

  “I wish my teachers had been as understanding as you,” Andy said, breaking her out of her musings.

  Tessa blushed at the compliment. “I do have the highest passing rate out of all the repeat classes.”

  She didn’t feel so bad bragging a little. You didn’t get to celebrate often enough when teaching.

  “I can see why you’re perfect for the job,” he went on. “With you at the head of the class, all the boys were probably climbing over themselves to stay late and do homework.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “A bunch of high-school guys and a pretty English teacher?” he remarked lightly. “Come on. I bet you’re the most popular teacher in school.”

  “That’s insulting.”

  “What? How?”

  “You’re assuming no one sees past how I look.” She shoved a springy coil of hair away from her face in agitation. “You totally discount how much time it takes to do what I do. I’m no pushover. My students respect me because I work my ass off.”

  “Whoa, I didn’t even remotely mean it that way.”

  Tessa took a breath to cool herself down. Her voice was taking on that strident tone she usually reserved for that war zone after lunch when the students were hyped up on too much sugar and caffeine and in no mood to discuss The Great Gatsby.

  “Man.” Andy whistled through his teeth and directed his attention to the road and only the road. “I called you pretty. That used to be okay,” he mumbled.

  And that was the end of that. Tessa took to staring out the window at nothing as the scenery blurred together. At some point, Andy started tapping out a tune only he recognized against the steering wheel.

  “Maybe turn on the radio,” she piped up.

  “Good idea,” he agreed.

  At this point, she just needed to get off this hill and as far away from the ruins of her wedding as possible. Then she could lock herself in her room and lick her wounds.

  The radio was no help out there in the boonies so she resorted to sifting through the glove compartment. After a brief dig, she held up a battered CD case.

  “The Three Tenors?” she read incredulously.

  Andy went on the defensive. “It’s not my van. I’m just borrowing it.”

  Shrugging, she popped the disc in. Pavarotti or one of those other guys started belting out something in Italian. He could have been singing about bloody revenge for all she knew, but opera was surprisingly soothing.

  “I’m sorry about snapping at you earlier,” she said during a mellow interlude. “It’s kind of a sore point for me being one of the youngest teachers on staff and, well, I guess I’m wound a bit tight right now.”

  Her apology sounded eloquent when accompanied by an orchestra.

  “Understood,” Andy said, downshifting as they started down a steep part of the road.

  “Thanks for being so cool about it.”

  “Hey, as my parents always say: don’t let anger fester.” He glanced at her and she caught a flash in his blue-gray eyes. “Best to duke it out right then and there, whether it be a grocery store, a crowded movie theater, or grandpa’s funeral.”

  She pressed a hand to her lips to choke back a laugh. Was it okay to laugh at that?

  If he was put out at all about being kidnapped, Andy didn’t show it. In profile, he maintained a calm, stalwart expression. His hands remained steady on the wheel as he navigated the van down the winding path.

  “What?” he asked, sensing her gaze on him.

  “You probably have parents who have been married forever.”

  “Thirty-five years.”

  “You don’t see that as much nowadays.”

  “I know. It’s like finding a unicorn.”

  “My parents lasted until I was ten,” she confessed. “Divorce is one of those things that just happens now, I guess. No one thinks twice about it. I don’t even feel it’s worth mentioning most of the time.”

  “But you did mention it.”

  “Well . . .” Her voice faded as she messed with the hem of her sleeve. “We were talking marriages so I figured I should go quid pro quo. Plus you tend to think about family and marriage a lot, you know, around a day like today.”

  It was kind of eerie how the tenors were singing a sorrowful dirge in the background. She turned down the volume until it was barely audible.

  “I mentioned my dad earlier.” She paused, taking in a deep breath. It wasn’t as if she needed to explain to Andy, but it was easier because he was an outsider. Whenever she tried to put her feelings into words in front of her mom or Renata or even Graham, a huge lump formed in her throat. “I don’t want you thinking he was some deadbeat dad. He can actually be very caring and patient. And fun, too. I mean, you should see him in a room of people. He could charm anyone.”

  She imagined Dad would have been that way today, if he had shown up. Dazzling everyone with the toast, twirling her around the dance floor.

  “He sounds like a great guy,” Andy acknowledged.

  “He was.” She sank back into the seat while the tenors belted out a tragic note. “When he was there.”

  Just like someone else she knew.

  When Graham was in town, when the stars and their schedules aligned, he could be the perfect boyfriend. It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed the similarities. People always said you married your parents, but so what? She loved both her parents. They just didn’t love each other.

  “It’s not like it ended badly between Mom and Dad,” was all Tessa was willing to admit out loud. “They’re still friendly. It was just the way my father was. Some people aren’t cut out for marriage.”

  There was no answer from Andy of the happily married Ottavios.

  “I think that was one of the reasons I felt so much pressure to go through with this. Mom always told us that it was just that she and Dad weren’t compatible. She didn’t want us to think that love didn’t exist or that it wasn’t possible for her daughters. She must have read somewhere that statistic that children of divorced parents ar
e fifty percent more likely to get divorced themselves and wanted to avoid that fate for us.”

  “Is that statistic true?”

  She shot him a wry look. “I suppose if the couple ever makes it to the altar.”

  “Ha.”

  “My older sister turned out so independent and anti-romance that Mom was beginning to lament she wouldn’t ever have grandchildren. Renata would taunt her by debating why marriage was even necessary. We could always start incubating zygotes on our own using modern technology.”

  “Or get yourself a sperm donor.”

  She smacked him in the arm and Andy rewarded her with a grin.

  “In any case, Mother was not amused. Renata was always pushing her buttons, but I was the good daughter, the one who wanted everyone to be happy. After I met Graham, everything just fell into place so smoothly. It felt like it was supposed to happen that way.”

  “Really?”

  His doubtful tone set her on edge. “What do you mean, ‘Really?’”

  A deep crease appeared over his brow. “I mean, was it really all that smooth sailing? If everything was so perfect, what are you doing here, running off with the caterer?”

  She was taken aback by his sudden challenge. Up until then, their conversation was the sort of soul-baring you did to your neighborhood bartender or the lady who did your nails. It barely skimmed the surface. “I’m not exactly running off with you.”

  He turned and gave her a look. “Sweetheart, in one form or another, that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

  Frowning, Tessa turned back to the window. Never during all six months of the engagement had she imagined her and Graham lasting five, ten, or fifty years together. Maybe she was afraid to look ahead. Or maybe she had never truly believed in forever.

  Two days ago, her father’s number had come up on her cell. She’d known what it would be even before picking up.

  “You know I want more than anything else to be there for you, honey,” Dad had said.

  But not enough to change whatever had popped up in his schedule.

  Mom had urged her not to get too upset about it. That was Dad for you. Tessa tried her hardest to shrug it off, but she couldn’t stop thinking of how Dad wouldn’t be there. This wasn’t a play. This wasn’t a birthday. This was her wedding. Suddenly the comparisons between her father and the man she was about to marry no longer seemed endearing.